For, a few years back a one game occurrence caused my grandson to declare to his coach that, “i quit!” Hours later, back home, I know he was looking for my support as he related what had happened. With that — and since I know there are a lot of hockey parents here in our membership, I’d like each of them to put themselves in my shoes…

Oh, on the one hand, we parents have good reason to ache for our flesh and blood, and we might just have the feeling that if our youngster quits, the coach will suffer a little pain of his or her own. That, however, would be a very shortsighted approach.

No, I wasn’t going to be an enabler for my young guy; his long-term happiness was my main concern. So I asked him what he was going to do next. Actually, I helped him a bit with the answer, noting a few not-so-great alternatives. Then, when he asked what I’d do under the circumstances, I offered, “I’d call your coach right now, I’d apologize, and then I guess I’d have to see what happens from there.”

The good part of this story is that it’s — at least so far — had a pretty happy ending. That “mean ole coach” (LOL) honored my guy with a team captaincy 2-years later, and the two have remained great friends since graduation. More recently, my young buddy has set some school records as a freshman hockey player.

Again, this is a kinda personal story, but it’s worth sharing if it saves just one member family. In fact, if I’d had the chance to help my new friend Dan in the same way some years ago, I wonder if things could have turned out differently for him, too.

These days, there is a junior A team in town, and I would’ve probably gone that route over high school hockey if the team was around when I was in school (only the junior team’s 2nd season).

Also, let’s face it: if a player feels good about himself (or herself) after a given rink visit, he likely dies to do more. And he’s likely to work on his game at home. With that, there tends to be a snowballing effect — do well at the rink, practice extra, do better in a game, practice more… Sadly too, though, just picture the opposite, with a kid having a lousy experience one night, and not wanting to even look at his (or her) hockey gear.

And, hmmmm… The hockey experience you related actually reminded me of a few of my own — having grown-up playing baseball, football and hockey. And, although those kinds of (really negative) events were few and far between, I do recall almost wanting to quit at times.

So, I think that’s the message we all have to gain — from your comment, and from the parent who inspired this line of discussion… The reason kids sign-up for a program is because they think it’s going to be fun. And, if it isn’t, at least most of the time, they’re not going to stay in the game for long.

Then, this interesting aside… One of the rinks I regularly skate at has some over-30, over-40 and over-50 senior leagues. And in the lobby I’ll often spot ex-NHL-ers, former college greats, and even a bunch of my old players or students. And I think to myself, “The sum total of their earlier experiences had to be pretty positive, for them to still love the game the way they obviously do.”

That happened to me in Bantams. I had a coach that had us skate for an hour and a half straight, never saw a puck that day. Was one of the most miserable experiences I ever had in hockey. It didn’t improve our team any. All it did was upset a lot of players and parents.